Elon University is a small liberal arts school located 30 minutes east of Greensboro and nearly an hour drive west from Raleigh-Durham International Airport in Elon, North Carolina. The draw of a small school like Elon cannot be whittled down a mere one-word answer because each student of the near 7,000 chose to be a Phoenix for a myriad of reasons.
40-percent of Elon’s population is made up of natives of the Northeast per the 2021 Spring registrar’s report. The most represented region of the country on campus outside of the mid-Atlantic. This may seem to narrow the list of reasons for attending the four-year school and make the student body rather homogenous, but within pockets of the Northeast, no one student is the same.
Adam Faberman, a sophomore from Natick, Massachusetts, agreed that Elon made him feel a part of a community instead of feeling like 1 of 7,000, a phenomenon garnering complaint at major universities with 40,000 plus students. This community that Faberman experienced upon his visit to Elon University is shared by more than 10-percent of the student body. For Nina Crocco, a junior originally from Fairfield, Connecticut and another member of the Northeast stronghold, felt a heightened sense of community and comfortability on campus because of her sister’s attendance at the school before her. Crocco had the opportunity to spend over a full year walking the campus with her sister and was enveloped into the fibers of the social scene before she even became an official student at Elon.
Being a southern school, the social scene is considered a large part of the culture of the university and is a desirable aspect for many incoming students who have heard that “college is the best four years of your life.” Junior Janae Carpenter and First-year Adam Drizen both hail from Massachusetts and knew that this was a part of the college experience they could not miss out on, putting social life in their top-3 reasons for choosing Elon. Greek life is a major part of the social scene at southern schools, but with such a large portion of the student body migrating from the Northeast where Greek life is not as engrained into society, it does not come up in reasons to attend Elon, hence Carpenter being the only one to give this answer.
Regardless of the importance of Greek life, all students share the same campus. A campus ranked #4 on the most beautiful campus list by Princeton Review. Princeton Review didn’t misstep in choosing Elon in the top-5 either, according to its students who attributed the campus to their enrollment at the school at the highest frequency. Over 14% of surveyed students listed the beauty of the campus as a reason for choosing Elon and there was no specific region that answered campus more than another. All up and down the eastern seaboard, students agreed.
“Southern feel,” “felt like home,” and “easy to live there” were all answers given as a testament to the overall vibe of the school and campus. Mary Grace Cavey, a senior from Richmond, Virginia, heard about Elon from her parents who are both alums and knew from the day she visited that it was the place for her. Being from Virginia, her trip was not long to reach the University, which made it more compelling to enroll and stay close to family. Her family was so in love with Elon, however, that in her time as a student, Cavey’s family packed up shop and moved south to live in Elon, NC full time.
Although Cavey and Co. loved being close to the school atmosphere, Mary Grace understood that taking time away from family to explore was also necessary. Her love for travel and Elon beautifully combined in the study abroad program. Elon’s study abroad program has the highest participation rate in the entire country at over 85-percent. While the campus is top-tier, the rest of the world has much to offer. Of the students who listed study abroad as a primary reason for their decision, about 75-percent of them were female. High school college counselors and Elon admissions representatives understand this fact and focus more on study abroad information while recruiting females to come to Elon as opposed to the school’s community – a much more frequent answer among males.
A sense of community was tied for second among most-answered responses and, interestingly, 100-percent of all those who attributed community to their enrollment were male. Community is much harder to sell in terms of how it is portrayed by admissions reps because it is more a feeling than a tangible, quantitative measure. This being said, it must be acquired while visiting the school and, more often than not, is realized after gaining a group of friends and support system.
Surveys and questionnaires are important facets to the admissions process because it offers the admissions representatives insight into what is working throughout the recruiting process for specific demographics. While region does not have an overwhelming effect on reasons for choosing Elon, males and females tend to focus on different aspects of the school in the decision process, and are more likeminded with the same sex.
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Tellier Lundquist 